Brian Wheeler on water supply and dredging task force
Brian Wheeler is the Executive Director of Charlottesville Tomorrow, a non-partisan organization that covers growth and development issues in our community. He appears on Tuesdays on Coy Barefoot’s program. On the October 14, 2008 edition of the show:
- Charlottesville has the most expensive gas in the state. (Daily Progress)
- Brian explains that Citizens for a Sustainable Water Supply Plan are concerned that the task force is not doing what it was originally told to do. Tom Frederick, Director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority recommended to his board that the four chairs create a task force and that two studies be done on a parallel track. Experts will study what to do with the dredged material and the task force will figure out if dredging is the best solution. (Charlottesville Tomorrow)
- Brian reports that three out of the four chairs felt that dredging should not change the 50 year water supply plan. Mayor Norris said that the task force should see if we can build a smaller dam if we can recover enough capacity in South Fork.
- Betty Mooney called in to say that Mr. Frederick fails to mention that without the new pipeline, the expanded Ragged Mountain Reservoir cannot fill itself. Betty feels that Gannett Fleming’s assumptions as to how much capacity can be recovered from dredging and whether that will be sufficient to meet our needs are incorrect and said that the stop work order is evidence that we should not trust their numbers. Brian says that the water supply plan has always mentioned the pipeline.
- The four chairs feel the first question the task force needs to answer is “should we dredge and if so why?” But, they should not consider dredging as in thinking it will change the water supply plan.
- The task force is seeking public input. He gives the website www.albemarle.org/southforkreservoir for a survey regarding the issue. (Charlottesville Tomorrow)
- Keith calls in and says that estimates for water demand were 11.08 MG/D but then after the drought and new water saving fixtures were put in the actual demand was 9.98 MG/D. The model used to justify need for the reservoir used thewas 11.08 MG/D even though demand had been significantly reduced. When that difference is compounded 7% each year for 50 years the difference is >30%.
- Kevin Lynch says that Brian fails to mention the charge of the task force being water supply. Feels like it’s a joke to think about using the reservoir primarily for fishing and rowing.
